


Behind Closed Doors

by vase



Series: Revelations [1]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Discussions of discrimination an prejudice, Eavesdropping, F/F, F/M, Gen, Grieving, The White Fang, debates, faunus, focal point pairing, mentions of discrimination & prejudice, relationship drama, world building
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-26
Updated: 2018-01-26
Packaged: 2019-03-09 17:01:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13485876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vase/pseuds/vase
Summary: Kali & Ghira, practically an ideal couple, always united, always happy, always in agreement, or so one would think. But Blake overhears an argument she was never meant to and learns more than perhaps she ever wished, not just about her parents, but a figure she’d consigned to the ghosts of the past.(Post V5)





	Behind Closed Doors

The sky overhead was dark and Blake’s back was tensed, her ears twitching as she nodded to the brown uniformed police that guarded the guesthouse her family had been offered by the Mistrali Council.

Both were polite, if silent, their expressions entirely hidden by their uniform black masks and focused gazes. Pushing the heavy doors open, Blake entered the fine wooden house that reminded her of the house of Governance back on Menagerie; she still couldn’t think of that place as home, having spent a scarce three months there in her entire life. Home was a cramped little dorm room with four beds and- Blake shook her head at that.

_ Keep focused _ , Blake told herself.  _ They accepted you, even though things are still… awkward with, Yang. _ She couldn’t blame the other woman for being so off around her; of course Yang was friendly, but it always felt a little forced, and her partner seemed to go to great lengths to avoid speaking with her alone.It wasn’t just Blake who had noticed either.  _ Maybe mom has some advice? _ She thought, scanning the dark wooden floors and pale white walls of their guest house.

Barring Sun and Ilia, as well as a few of her father’s own guards, the rest of their people were currently staying at Haven in the empty dorms, the city itself not having enough space to easily accommodate hundreds of Faunus. It was also a show of solidarity, the Faunus of Menagerie 'guarding’ Haven and helping out with repairs for what their brethren did. Some grumbled, and Blake could see why, but it all felt quite positive to her; like she was leaving things on the right path as she and the others readied to make for Atlas.

Dragging herself back to reality, Blake’s ears twitched and she sniffed the air, searching for her parents.

After but a moment her ears swiveled to the study on the second floor, where hurried but light footsteps that could only belong to her mother’s pacing sounded against the floor, her father’s fingers thrumming upon a desk.

Making her way upstairs, she passed the black and grey guards from home and nodded to them. “Will I be interrupting anything?” She asked, half joking.

Only, Saber grimaced.“It would be best if you waited, Miss Belladonna, as your parents are discussing…” He looked lost for a moment, his cheek tinting pink. “Intimate matters?”

Blake’s lips dipped into a frown at such an obvious lie. Not wanting a fight, though, she bit her lip and ducked her head. “All right then. I’ll be waiting downstairs.”

“We’ll tell them you’re here the moment they’re done speaking, young miss,” the other guard said, her canine ears flicking as she offered a toothy smile.

“Thank you.” Blake smiled in return, yet as she entered the elegant living room and took a seat, Blake concentrated on her Semblance. The shadowy energy rippled silently around her frame, congealing and stretching as she slowly slipped from a hollow shell. But with each slow movement away from it, she left more and more power in her clones frame until it lazily lolled back upon the couch as though she were dozing.

_ Perfect. _ Blake thought before tossing off her coat, silently flickering out an open window. Blending into the shadows, she moved up the roof, dodging observers with practiced ease before coming to a stop above the study, resting her head against the black tiled roof and letting the sounds from below echo upwards.

Only for her to frown at what was being exchanged, because even though Blake wasn’t wholly sure what she expected, the sounds of an argument wasn’t it. Straining harder to hear, she began to pick out the details as her father’s deep baritone struck her ears.

“Kali, will you please go and lie down,” he sighed.

Something scraped the floor as her mother snapped back in an instant. "You can’t just send me away like I’m one of your guards, Ghira.”

“I’m not trying to, I just think you’re tired.”

“The shadows under your eyes are just as deep, my love.”

Blake’s ears stuck to her head at  _ that  _ familiar phase. 

“Then maybe we can both get some rest and talk in the morning?”

Her mother’s pacing resumed, arrhythmic and anxious. “If you want to sleep and just ignore this, fine, I’ll stay up.”

“And do what?”

“Maybe visit the ghettos, or try to get service in one of Mistral’s welcoming stores. It shouldn’t take me longer than an hour to find one that doesn’t have a ‘no Faunus’ sign slapped on the front.“

Ghira sighed once more. "You’re exaggerating.”

“Coming from the man who has barely been down there, that means nothing. Haven’t you wondered why they’re keeping us on this mountain in a gilded cage? It’s because we’d notice something’s wrong if we went down there and saw how the Faunus of Mistral lived.”

Even though her mother’s words were biting and her father’s were growing rougher by the minute, both kept their voices low, low enough the human guards wouldn’t be able to hear them.

“I’m well aware that things aren’t perfect, dear,” Ghira groused. “But we’re making progress; the councillors and I have struck up a real rapport and it’s not only speeding along the recovery of Haven, but making it easier for us to bring the scattered factions of our people together.”

Kali’s sleeves flapped with sudden motion, her words cracking like glass. “ _ What _ progress? No, I mean what has that actually led us to? Loyal White Fang sympathizers and soldiers being locked away, forced on the run, or if they are very, very lucky, marked down on a list for the next time something goes wrong?”

“The White Fang just tried to obliterate Haven, and after what they did to Beacon, distrust is to be expected.”

“This goes beyond  _ distrust _ Ghira; have you heard what some people are saying? I’ve seen popular videos and articles of people claiming that the entire attack was just a hoax in order for you to integrate yourself with the council and start stealing precious jobs and resources for Faunus! Meanwhile, the newspapers sing your praises even as you and they demonize any Faunus who dares speak out.”

There was a pause for a moment, someone moving around the room, followed by the shuffling of paper as Kali’s voice sounded again. “Listen to this drivel: _ Ghira Belladonna is the ideal leader off the Faunus, respectful and courteous. He is a Faunus who knows there is a time a place and tone for politics and that the savagery of the White Fang and the incendiary protests of rebels without a cause, do nothing but lower the discourse and undermine the very issues these protesters claim to fight for’. _ ”

A stammer of protest came, but Kali just snarled in a way Blake had never heard before that sent a shiver into her chest. “Oh and it goes  _ on _ , all human think pieces about how there’s no such thing as  _ bigotry _ , how we should be making amends for what Adam failed to do, thanks to us, and about how we’re so terribly ungrateful for an island at the end of the world and that we should all go back there.”

Ghira huffed out a breath, his hand drumming against something. “I know some people can be petty, prejudiced, and small minded, but they were raised ignorant, mostly. Not to mention they’ve been scared by the White Fang; given time, things will change.”

“Time, always time,” her mother murmured, sounding more drained and bitter than Blake had ever heard her.“When will it be time for signs barring us from stores to be illegal? Because we certainly can’t do the same for humans. When will it be time for the Faunus thrown in lock up or gunned down for intimidating police just by existing to go free and get justice?”

“You sound like Sienna,” came the mumbled response, and the reaction that got was striking, sending Blake’s heart into her throat.

“Well, at least _ one _ of us does! Say what you will about her Ghira - and I know you already have - but at least she never wavered when it came to fighting for our people, for equality.”

“She  _ killed _ people.”

“We all killed people in the war, Ghira, every one of us,” her mother bitterly rejoindered.

“We aren’t at war any more, Kali.”

With a fierce growl, her mother bit out her next words. “Tell that to the Faunus in the debt mines! Not just in Atlas but here, too. Tell it to the Faunus who can’t enter shops and whole sectors of the city, because clearly this isn’t their home too! Tell that to the Faunus being driven out of Vale and fleeing to Menagerie because of lynch mobs, Ghira, because it certainly feels like war to me.”

Blake took in a low shuddering breath as her mind whirled and dread flooded her stomach as memories of Velvet and her tormentors flooded the back of her head like a pulsing poison. 

The rumble in Ghira’s chests was enough to almost makes the tiles beneath Blake shake. “I don’t accept these things, Kali, but I can’t stop them all. I’m doing the best I can.”

“When, then, are you going to broach that trade and protection deal Menagerie and the southern settlements need? With the White Fang scattering in fear, all of the settlements they protected across Southern Anima are vulnerable, and only getting more so as refugees flood in. Without the ships and fairways being protected by their patrols, how are the refugees even going to make it to us, let alone survive once they get there?”

“I’m working on it, but Mistral is weak and-”

Kali cut him off. “They have a militia! Dozens of Hunters may be dead, but the biggest kingdom in the world can surely spare some forces to protects its allies? We have our own people fighting each other, hurting each other for _ them _ , Ghira, and just like always they spit it back in our faces.”

Ghira attempted a softer tone, trying to calm the room down. “Kali, they’re  _ afraid; _ a Faunus almost wiped out one kingdom, and then another.”

Had that come from a human, Blake knew she’d have had a rejoinder about how often humans had tried to wipe out Faunus. But when her father said it she- 

“Funny how whenever one of us does wrong, the rest of us have to spend our lives and blood making up for it, whilst humans can kill us by the hundreds and we still have to give them  _ chance _ after  _ chance. _ ”

Blake started when her father's heavy oots hit the floor. 

“That is  _ not _ what I am doing and you know it. I am  _ trying _ to secure a deal, but these things take time. They need to see us as friends before anything else, or this just becomes some alliance of political convenience, an exchange of favors by necessity, and once their debt is paid they’ll drift away again. We have to be patient with them, Kali. I know it's frustrating, but-”

Her mother’s voice grew harsher as dread spilled from her lips. “We have too many people in Menagerie already, and we cannot turn the new arrivals away. But the more time passes the harder and harder it’s going to get. As we get less and less shipments from the rest of the world and the Grimm retake the trade paths, soon Menagerie will be like it was before. Filled with derelict homes, sickness, and starvation.”

“I won’t let that happen.”

“How? All I see, all I hear in these meetings is- is  _ pablum. _ Rhetoric. You denounce bigots in the same breath as you justify them.”

“It’s not ‘justifying’ to acknowledge how they were raised and need to be taught.”

“At our expense?”

“There you go, sounding like her again.  _ Us _ versus  _ them _ , focused solely on the negative. Have you considered that things are as bad as they are now  _ because _ Sienna fought? Because she used violence instead of words and let people like Adam fester until they killed her?”

Blake’s heart froze when her mother’s voice cracked in her throat.“How  _ dare _ you use her against me, Ghira. How dare you spit on her name, on everything she did for us, for our people!?”

“I…” Ghira paused. “Of course. I know, you’re right, I’m sorry. It's just... you’re asking too much. Once the fear fades, they will see us as friends and everything will be bette r. But to do that I need them to trust us first, to know we’re really aiming for peace and cooperation this time, and being pushy with the deals - let alone defending Sienna - won’t do that.”

But her mother, goodness, Blake had never sensed her shake like that before, it ran through the floor and walls as a vibration. She wanted to burst in and wrap her in a tight hug, but found herself pinned to the roof by her own morbid mix of fear and curiosity.

“How… how is this _ too much? _ How was it ever  _ too much?” _ she sniffed. “We just wanted respect, to share the world, and at every turn we’ve been hated and spited and now you’re telling me again that we have to wait, we have to be patient, while Sienna lies rotting. Her memory twisted, and the organization she poured her life into torn apart. I…”

She took in a shuddering breath. “It all feels the same, like when I was girl. Before the ships came to drag us away, back after the war finished and we threw our hearts and souls into reconciliation even though we were winning. We accepted the call for peace and tried so hard. And to be met with what? Rocks and tear gas, slave mines turned into debt mines, to walk down the street fearing the police and knowing we aren’t welcome?”

In the moment of quiet that follow, the tension seemed to flee Blake’s body and she was left almost limp and exhausted. 

Kali gasped a breath before carrying on. “Sienna fought for our people to never have to live through that again. Blake, too, but now she’s standing with you and I’m just wondering... how long until she sees that nothing has changed? For all her sacrifices, for all the Faunus she’s been forced to fight; how long until my baby girl sees what I see? Ancestors… I understand now- no, I knew  _ then _ \- why Sienna said she’d never bring a child into this world, to have them face a life of bigotry and violence. Who would want that for their child?”

Her father's throat rumbled, followed by the sound of a chair scraping on wood. His heavy footfalls almost led to her mother, only to pass her as his hands slapped against the walls, the wood straining under his weight as he let out a deep groan.

“If you really have so little faith in me, why did you stay?” His voice was rough and pained. “Was it pity? Did you think if I lost you, and Blake, and even  _ Sienna _ , that I would never survive-”

A sharp hiss escaped her mother’s lips. “Is that it? Jealousy?”

“No, I just-”

“I didn’t leave for  _ you _ and I wouldn’t have stayed for  _ her _ , Ghira. I left because I was  _ tired _ ,” her mother stressed, voice wavering. "Tired of fighting, tired of the threats, of the suffering and death, all I wanted was to  _ rest!” _

"But I stayed,” Kali ground out, a stomp of her feet making Blake flinch. “After the war, I marched, I worked, I volunteered, and I withstood everything at the front lines. And when Blake was born, oh my beautiful girl, all I wanted was to hide her away from it all! But you two, your commitment was always so intense and it made me want to fight too, so my baby girl didn’t have to suffer as we did. Yet look what happened!”

A sharp sob escaped her mother and Blake could hear Ghira going to her side, only to get rebuffed.

“Don’t,” she said, word mingling with another snarl. “Not after what you said.”

“Kali I… I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said it the way I did. Whatever Sienna might have been, she-”

“She was a patriot! She was a warrior, a protector, she fought for our people and you stand by and let the humans rake her name through the mud and throw her in my face in a fight!”

More sharp, choked sobs escaped her mother. "Ancestors, Ghira, wasn’t she your friend? Can’t you recall for even one moment that Sienna was my wife!?”

The world froze, Blake’s entire body locking up as her mother’s tirade continued.

“Since the day we found that damned Scroll, I’ve been dreading it. So many times I readied myself for it, resolved myself each day that Sienna or Blake would die fighting, but I still wasn’t ready. But did you see it Ghira? Did you? No,” her mother spat. “Because you and Blake needed me, and I was so sure that boy could never kill her. Then, after the assassins came, all I could feel was relief my baby girl was still with me! All I could think was how I have to stop Adam from killing more people, Faunus, humans, children! So I kept it buried, Ghira, and I buried it deeper still just to help you and your ideals. I kept silent and stood by your side, all the while I see humans turning her name into muck and you throw her in my face and blame her for Adam, but can’t even conceive of doing the same for humans! Why?! Can’t you even just let me grieve!?”   
  
Blake was frozen as she heard her mother drop to the floor, limbs collapsing against the hardwood boards

“I lost everything in the war,” she sobbed. “Everything except for the two of you and I have always,  _ always _ loved you both.” Her pants intensified, until she spoke through gritted teeth. “I have no friends, Ghira, I had no family save the two of you and Blake, and this constant struggle has ripped you all away from me time and time again. And I understand that! It’s why I loved you both! Yes, maybe Sienna’s protectiveness could at times spill over into retribution, but your optimism leads you to trust blindly in the good will of others that just isn’t  _ there _ , Ghira.”

Blake shuddered at her mother's intensity, even as her words seemed to shake as though her body was wracked with shaking spasms. The strain and grieved fury was like a physical force that left her own throat closing up and her eyes wet with sympathy. 

“Now I have to sit and watch while everything my love built is left to crumble.” Kali’s voice wavered, as life and inflection slowly bled away from her spirit. “The White Fang, the settlements, Menagerie, watching as her memory is spat on even by the people closest to me while our people, the people she spent her life fighting for, are left to rot. I have to watch everything she dedicated her life to get ground to dust as her people’s new voice -  _ you, _ Ghira - tells them to quiet themselves when they are wronged because their anger upsets their tormentors, and while more languish in cells, in chains and in graves.”

A terrible silence hung, like a void that just grew and grew, consuming thoughts and word, leaving Blake numb, even as her claws dragged across the tiles. 

“We fought each other, for these people… Faunus against Faunus, kin against kin.” Blake could hear her bristle as another sob escaped Kali. “I can’t imagine a more sickening violation of everything Sienna held dear and you don’t even have one word to say about her! Not my wife, but your friend, Sienna, the woman you fought besides and patched up after battles. You won’t even defend her memory now that the humans are looking at you again.”

The room lingered in silence before Ghira spoke again. “Kali, I- I’ll try harder…”

Her mother didn’t respond, merely rising up with a shuffle of her clothes as she mumbled, “Thank you. But I’m- I’m going to bed.”

Blake heard the door close shut and slowly, her mother shuffled out of earshot as her father sat down with a tired groan.

Blake, for her part, stayed up on the roof, the chilly mountain air sharp against her skin as her mind whirled and she struggled to piece together all she had heard. Or how to even react to it.

* * *

 

Deep in Southern Anima, within the bowels of the White Fang headquarters of Fort castle, a stone coffin was watched over by four un-masked soldiers. Locked within its dark confined , the robed woman’s skin was unmarred by neither rot nor maggots.

If one listened closely, they might have heard a gentle  _ thump thump, thump thump _ , and if one looked inside they would see intricate red sigils spreading across her skin like a network of pulsing energy. Then, with a dry gasp, golden eyes flared open for just an instant as she took in her first dry breath, her first thought. 

_ I live. _

**Author's Note:**

> Hi there, thanks so much for reading, I hope it was enjoyable! I would like to thank faunusrights for being an amazing editor! If you have any questions or comments, please don’t be shy, I am eager for feedback :D 
> 
> I am hoping to have a few other fics set in this same stories ‘universe’ written one day soon, but due to my studies starting up again I may be a bit slow.


End file.
